Whatever Happened to Peace On Earth?,
Axis of Logic Editorial, January 3, 2004
By Sheila Samples, Axis of Logic Contributing Editor
Jan 3, 2004, 01:33
We believe everything that they tell us.
They're gonna' kill us!
So we gotta' kill them first.
But I remember a commandment --
Thou shall not kill.
How much is that soldier's life worth --
And whatever happened to peace on earth?
And the bewildered herd is still believing
Everything we've been told from our birth.
Hell, they won't lie to me --
Not on my own damn TV!
But how much is a liar's word worth --
And whatever happened to peace on earth?
~~Country music's Willie Nelson, in his Christmas 2003 song, "Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?"
How much IS a liar's word worth? Will Americans -- and there's no more bewildered herd anywhere to be found -- ultimately count the lies told by their president, by the deranged warmongers who crowd around him and, more important, by the insidious, complicit media? When Americans are forced to tally up the cost of these lies, will they measure their worth in tax dollars, in loss of freedoms, or in body bags?
How many lies are you willing to bid for just one US soldier on war's auction block? Even in a deranged society such as ours whose media is bewitched by its ruler's ghoulish delusions, there must come a point at which Americans are bewildered no more and will turn as one and thunder -- Enough! No More Lies!
A Fall from Grace
The sound of the media's fall from grace has been deafening, but in the US population forest, few will admit they heard it. Later, when the bodies of slain soldiers returning to Dover Air Force Base can be hidden no longer -- when the dike breaks and the reality of a US foreign policy of torture, assassination and senseless slaughter of innocents based solely on lies washes over the herd -- there will be those who wail in anguish that they are innocent. They'll say we were uninformed by the administration. We were misinformed by the media. We were lied to by everyone. It's the media's fault. Don't blame us for the dead, the maimed, the destroyed -- blame George Bush. He lied to us.
Yes, but the lies aren't secret. They're out there for all to see. Google "George Bush lies for war." In 20 seconds, there's 1,170,000 to wade through. Richard Cheney's lies for war, although just as deadly, number only 59,500, but burgeons to 83,900 when he's a "Dick." Of course, this doesn't mean that Bush and Cheney have told more than a million lies to drag the world into war; simply that the lies they have told are documented and easily accessed. It means that Americans have no valid excuse for feigning ignorance, for accepting further death and destruction, or for continuing to march in lockstep to the drums of war.
There is no reason for any American not to be aware of the systematic lies told by this administration in a string of speeches to the nation and broadcast via the media in order to gain support for an unprovoked attack upon a mostly defenseless country. No reason. Some of the lies repeated ad nauseum are:
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons"...George Bush, Speech to the UN General Assembly, 9/12/2002
"The Iraqi regime...possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas." George Bush Cincinnati, Ohio Speech, 10/7/2002
"There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Hussein is gathering weapons for the purpose of using them. And adding additional information is like adding a foot to Mount Everest." Ari Fleischer, Response to Question from Press, 9/6/2002
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." Dick Cheney, Speech to VFW National Convention, 8/26/2002
The performance of the media throughout the Clinton administration and the 2000 presidential campaign was shameful. Since 9-11, it has been treasonous. The media has relentlessly -- eagerly -- served as the Bush administration's arrogant propaganda arm in managing and solidifying public lust for international bloodshed. Americans were expected to believe -- and many of them still do -- that Saddam Hussein was poised to annihilate them within 45 minutes. It has been drummed into their heads that Saddam plotted in concert with Al-Qaeda for the 9-11 attacks. Who didn't believe that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction were stacked like dunes across the desert?
Lie after feverish lie tangled up in a clamoring public-relations blitz leading up to the war, including Bush's infamous 16-word whopper -- "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
However, the media refused to question Bush's veracity then and still refuse to do so, even though he has changed his reason for invading Iraq at least three times. Without fear of being pressed on the point, defense deputy Paul Wolfowitz breezily admitted, "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.
When ABC's Diane Sawyer pressed Bush in mid-December about WMD, she suggested that the loss of hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iraqis -- many of them women and children -- perhaps should have required more concrete evidence. Bush went into a tizzy, and, perhaps for the first time, told the truth about his grisly imperialist fiasco, "So--," he snapped, "what's the difference...?"
Earnest Partridge, co-editor of The Crisis Papers, nailed the media in an April 2003 Bushwatch editorial, wherein he concluded, "...the media no longer regards itself, and no longer functions, as a source of facts to the public and as a forum for the open discussion of urgent public issues. Instead, it serves to promulgate false information and propaganda at the behest of the Bush regime and the corporate interests that put him in power and that dictate his agenda."
It must be true. The most memorable example of willing, almost feverish, media adoration came shortly after the initial assault on Iraq, and it came from someone who should have known better. CBS' Dan Rather gushed on Larry King Live, "Bush is my president. Whatever he tells me to do, I'll just salute, line up behind him and say 'Yes Sir!"
Reminds me of the wonderful Walter Williams, first dean of the Missouri School of Journalism, who set forth principles, values and standards for journalists a century ago in a "creed" that print journalists, at least, have worn proudly as a badge of honor as they practice their craft.
"I believe," Williams wrote, "that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of a lesser service than the public service is betrayal of this trust."
This, of course, was before the advent of today's "rip and read" television personalities who are happy to exchange journalistic principles and values for TV's bright lights and big bucks that name recognition brings.
I used to think these grinning, vacuous, target-eyed babes and boobs were psychologically incapable of exposing Bush as a liar. But as I watch them obediently read the White House talking points of the day, I realize it doesn't matter to them whether Bush lies or not. Perception is everything when there is no peace on earth. Their corporate bosses greedily hitched their ratings wagons to Bush's bloodthirsty star long ago. They're in too deep to back out now. Wouldn't be prudent...
Sadly, few print or electronic journalists in today's world comprehend Walter Williams' admonition that "suppression of the news, for any consideration other than the welfare of society, is indefensible..."
No Peace on Earth
The truth is out there -- has been out there for more than a decade -- but few Americans are able to withstand the shock of facing it head-on. The building blocks of the Bush Doctrine of pre-eminent strikes against all who oppose US global dominance were put in place years ago by a tight-knit cartel of neoconservatives for whom the word "peace" has no meaning whatsoever.
Their body includes think-tank missionaries, media magnates, pundits and commentators, as well as presidential advisers and cabinet members. Most of this creepy gang are blood-stained Iran-Contra alumni. Their beat is the world and they are well on their way to destroying it in their quest for total power and control.
The lies cited above were carefully orchestrated to bring to fruition the imperalistic crusade set forth in a deadly treatise, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Srategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century." It was prepared by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) in the 90's, and published in September 2000.
Its primary author is William Kristol, who is the founder of PNAC and editor of The Weekly Standard -- a Rupert Murdoch-financed publication which pants for war and the New World Order on every page. Kristol is also a regular Rupert-Murdoch-owned Fox News commentator.
Americans can read Kristol's 77-page strategy or Bush's shorter version, "the National Security Strategy of the United States," which is only about 24 pages, but was written by the Pentagon's Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz, and vetted through Dick Cheney and his powerful chief of staff, Lewis Libby. It is the same blueprint for a Pax Americana, precluding the rise of a great power rival and shaping the world order in line with American principles and interests.
If we label Republicans "neocons" who remain silent as we are swept into domestic and international disaster -- what do we call Democrats who appear to also be struck dumb? How can we expect Americans to resist -- to speak out for peace on earth -- if their elected leaders see no problem with Bush's diabolical plans to use our young men and women as weapons of mass destruction in one regime change after another? These are dangerous people -- some say they are quite mad, for the only reality they know is what is in their own heads. The rest is collateral damage. And that would be you and me.
The Philadelphia Inquirer's Dick Polman was sounding the alarm back in May when he said, "The neocons care little about domestic policy; they think globally. They don't believe in peaceful coexistence with hostile, undemocratic states; rather, they want an 'unapologetic, idealistic, assertive' America (in Kristol's words) that will foment pro-democratic revolutions around the world, if necessary at the point of a gun."
Polman also quoted Pentagon adviser Michael Ledeen, who, while puffing on a fat cigar, said: "Americans believe that peace is normal, but that's not true. Life isn't like that. Peace is abnormal..."
Richard Perle, who routinely goes overseas to stick his foot in his mouth, admitted in London in November that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal. Perle, a key member of the Defense Policy Board and critical adviser to secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, told an audience in London that "international law...would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone."
The neocons make no bones about their impending plans. If Americans allow George Bush to remain in office, it will be Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and on and on -- like dominoes toppliing. When asked recently what he would say to these countries, Perle responded with -- "We could deliver a short message, a two-word message: You're next..."
So, how much is a liar's word worth? When a liar stands before us on the eve of yet another "shock and awe" slaughter and says, "The (insert country of choice) dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons," what will we, as Americans, do?
Will we finally rise up and say, "Enough!"
Or will we weep in bewilderment, while silently wondering -- whatever happened to peace on earth?
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma freelance writer, a former US Army Public Information Officer and Axis of Logic contributing editor. Reprint permission is granted if it includes name of author and Axis of Logic designation.
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